Читать книгу The Wedding Bargain - Emily French - Страница 12

From the top of Mystic Ridge on a clear day you could see forever. Today was such a one. There was not a hint of dampness in the air. Reaching the crest of the rocky outcrop, Charity sank down, breathing heavily, and unfastened her bonnet.

The rough, foot-worn track was a shortcut from Whitewater, but the hill was steep and the sun, two hours beyond zenith, simmered hotly overhead. Next time she went to visit Martha Schofield she would go the long way round and take the pony.

Charity swung her leather pouch off her shoulder and removed her bonnet. Her thick red braids fell to her waist. She lifted them from her shoulders, allowing the breeze to cool her neck as she thought about her visit to Whitewater.

Usually, Martha ran forward to hug her and exclaim delightedly. Today she had been grim and tight-lipped. Nothing, it seemed, would bring a smile to her face.

Cotton Schofield had appeared pleased to see Charity. He was a soft-spoken, almost inarticulate man with thick brown hair and skin the color of tanned leather. He grinned a shy welcome.

“How’s the baby?” Charity demanded tightly.

Martha did not reply.

It was Cotton Schofield who answered. “Oh, she’s thriving now. We’ve been giving her the cordial regular, like you said, ‘n’ now you’d hardly know her. Look.”

Relieved, Charity smiled. It must have been the longest speech he’d ever made. Cotton led the way to the wicker basket and turned back the shawl from the little face.

Charity felt her heart stir at the sight of the petite creature. “Oh, Martha! She’s truly bonny. There’s even color in her cheeks. You are truly blessed to have a girl child.”

“Perhaps when you and Amos marry, you will be as fortunate.”

“I don’t intend to marry Amos Saybrook.” Charity’s head lifted in its familiar, proud way. “I don’t want to marry at all. Nor do I need to. I have Mystic Ridge and the boys.”

“It isn’t good for a woman to remain single. No good at all.”

Charity was not so sure. An unwed woman might own her own property, contract debts and run her own business. But a married woman, so far as the law was concerned, existed only in her husband. He had the use of all her real property and absolute possession of all her personal property, even the clothes on her back, and he could bequeath them to somebody else in his will. He was entitled to beat her for any faults. He had complete power over his wife and children. A wife’s duty was submission to whatever a husband commanded.

It was far better and safer to remain unwed. Except to conceive a girl child, of course. A lump tightened in her throat. Why did she suddenly think of the bondman? Her heart palpitated at the thought.

“I’ll marry the man I want…” Her gaze went to the cradle. “And then maybe I’ll have…” She placed her fingers on the baby’s soft cheek, the touch as light as thistledown.

Martha’s lips twisted. She hesitated, but only for a moment. “Don’t get too high-flown, Charity. Ezra is gone. You’re bound to marry again. Amos Saybrook is a good size and as strong as an ox, well able to defend you if there is an Indian uprising.”

“I’m not high-flown, Martha. I just know what I want, and I intend to get it.” Charity was quite surprised to find that her voice was steady. “Same as Jeremy here. He wants up, don’t you, young man?”

Clutching her skirts was Jeremy, who could scarcely walk upright. The child’s small, unstable legs still betrayed him occasionally, and he was fretful with the fever that often accompanied a new tooth. Charity lifted him to her hip. He cried loudly and fiercely and clung to her neck with both arms.

Before Martha could reply, Cotton cut in. “It ain’t any of our business what you do, Charity. Just remember, you’ve got to be practical. Would you like some refreshment?”

Charity accepted the offer of some fresh milk and corn bread. She sat on a stool beside the table, Jeremy cuddled on her lap, and sipped at the cup of milk Cotton had given her.

There was talk of the weather, how hot summer was this year. No mention was made of the bondman, nor was there any embarrassing reference to the auction and her extraordinary conduct.

More important matters concerned the Schofields. It seemed that several sacks of corn had disappeared from their barn. The unspoken question hung heavily in the air.

Cotton again surprised Charity by launching into a long speech. “It’s not likely you came across any Indians. They’re like foxes, those Pequots. Nobody sees them till they’re ready to show.”

“Oh, my God.” Charity gripped her hands together around Jeremy, her drink forgotten beside her. “I didn’t see any.” Her voice had gone quite low.

Cotton spread his hands. His head shook from side to side. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, Charity, just wanted to warn you. I don’t think there’s any danger—not yet, anyway. You just drink your milk, and think about findin’ yourself a good man.”

A good man. Rafe Trehearne. The words forced themselves into her brain. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She seemed to be breaking up into two people. One part was sitting there listening to Cotton and Martha; another part was causing her fear and confusion by unexpectedly thinking about her bondman.

Cotton gave a slow, easy shrug and excused himself. He wanted to get the flax harvested before it rained. It always seemed to rain at seedtime and harvest. Just to spite a man.

The older children, Zackary and Caleb, went with their father to keep an eye out for wild beasts and Indians while he worked. Charity dutifully admired Martha’s brownand-white-speckled hen and the tiny chicks that poked their heads through their mother’s wings, the little beaks shining like pink flower buds. There was nothing so wonderful as new life.

Martha suddenly became tongue-tied. Taking Jeremy from Charity, she settled him on her hip. The boy whimpered, his face pressed in the hollow between his mother’s neck and shoulder.

Charity looked at her friend closely. She felt uncommonly disturbed. Martha’s eyes were dull and darkly circled, and her blond hair was lank and drab.

It was not like Martha to be withdrawn and secretive. To find the cause of her friend’s misery, Charity started small talk on a variety of subjects. How were the children? Had they enough food? Was there anything she could help them with?

Unexpectedly, Martha’s lower lip began to quiver and tears filled her eyes. Charity wondered if she was ill, but then it had all tumbled out: Martha was pregnant again. This would be her fifth child in as many years. She could no longer keep up with her market orders.

Charity thought her heart would break in sympathy. Martha was as industrious as her husband. With her spinning wheel, loom and dye pots, she produced clothing, blankets and quilts for her family. The balance was sold or exchanged on market day.

A good man. Cotton Schofield was a good man. He had cut a road from Whitewater to the King’s Highway wide enough for the lumber company to bring in their ox wagons and cart the timber he cleared to the sawmill at Mystic. He wanted to save his wife the effort of helping to make ends meet with her sewing.

And his wife had sobbed her heart out because of it!

On the way home now after her visit, Charity sat very still and gazed on the scene below.

Beneath her the ground fell in a gentle incline toward the river, a loop of which vanished from sight behind the farmhouse and reappeared just past the stone wall in back of the barn. From beyond the stream came the sound of chopping. The steady blows filled the air, permeating it so that it seemed to vibrate before her eyes.

She couldn’t help remembering what Cotton Schofield had said about Indians, although the one or two Pequots who came to Mystic Ridge always seemed peaceful enough. They had dark hair and eyes, and high, broad cheekbones like Rafe Trehearne, and like him, they went their own silent way.

The thought of Indians in the same breath as Rafe Trehearne made her uneasy. But she was soon soothed by the splendid view from her vantage point. Her sense of time slipped away.

Willow, birch, spruce, fir and buck oak merged in a sea of misty green. Sparks from a controlled burn-off of undergrowth in a small, cleared area sailed upward. Smoke billowed into the air and shimmered against the summer sky, dancing and distorting her vision.

The rhythmic thrumming was more insistent now. Balancing her elbows on the ground, Charity leaned back and closed her eyes briefly.

A good man. Rafe Trehearne. She let the word husband trickle through her mind. It dominated her senses, filling the air with a smoky tang, washing over her like the sea. The sensation was so strong that she felt as though she had experienced these thoughts before.

She wondered if she had.

Wondered, too, if this day, this moment would come back to her years later: this quiet contemplation, the sweet inconsequentiality of the whole scene. The smell of smoke, of summer grass and lady ferns, and the sound of Rafe Trehearne clearing the forest.

Like a child awakening, her eyes flew open. She was becoming fanciful. She turned her mind to more practical matters, like how to keep Mystic Ridge without taking a husband.

A dream no more.

Silence pervaded. Charity sat up, a small frisson of agitation ran down her spine as she tried to imagine the reason for such silence.

The cessation of sound was only momentary; the next moment there was a piercing scream. It was made by one of her sons.

Charity jumped to her feet. No sooner had her boots touched the ground than she was off down the hill, running as fast as her legs would move.

“We saw a snake, Master Trehearne!”

“A great big’un!” added Benjamin, all out of breath.

Rafe had removed his shirt, and his bare arms were slick with sweat. He had just driven the broad blade of the ax deep into a buck oak, and his hands rested lightly on the smooth hickory handle. “Sure it wasn’t a figment of your imagination?”

Isaac stabbed a finger in the air, and his blue green eyes sparkled. “I did see it! A green-striped adder, sir!”

Rafe was momentarily amused. This pair never gave up, he thought. “And where is this fierce serpent?”

“He crawled into the barn!” Isaac shuddered, just once, a pathetic gesture.

Of all the damned crazy notions. Rafe shrugged. He knew for an absolute certainty now that the boys were up to more mischief. He still felt nauseated from the salted tea he’d drunk out of sheer bravado. He wished they would go back to the house and leave him alone, but he was engaged in a contest of wills, so he calmly wrenched the ax free.

“Well, snakes will crawl out with the spring heat,” he said casually. “Better be careful, kids!” He returned to his labor.

Occasionally as he worked Rafe glanced over at the saltbox homestead and outbuildings. There was no saying what those rapscallions were up to. He had overheard Charity giving the boys instructions about learning some catechism for the morrow. While he was sure they were not attending to their lessons, they were quiet enough, anyhow.

Probably hatching up more pranks.

He could see them in his mind’s eye, bright heads bent together, blue green eyes shining as they concocted their mischief. Somehow, the image became overlaid with that of another.

It was Charity’s bright hair that he saw, mysteriously free of that starched helmet she wore and flowing over her shoulders like ribbons of red silk. Those luminous, sea-colored eyes, which seemed to trap and hold the light, were all misty admiration, as if he were a visitation from heaven.

Rafe felt the tension pounding behind his eyes. He shook his head. This was no time for romantic visions.

He bent back to his task. His body glistened with sweat as he hacked branches off the big oak. There was a sense of savage relief in the hard physical exertion. He had no time to brood, no time to think.

But the thought of Charity Frey would not be denied. She had gone off to visit a neighbor whose child was ailing. It seemed the little Puritan was something of a healer.

Of mind as well as body? The previous evening she had stood there, anxious and afraid, and yet had been able to reach out and touch his mind.

It occurred to Rafe that he himself had manipulated Charity Frey earlier than that. He had provoked her into making a decision that went against all her Puritan principles.

Confused and dim-witted as he had been at the time, he had recognized the panic within her. She had been seeking protection, offering sanctuary. Across the distance between them at the auction block, the bargain had been sealed.

Last night she had called on him to honor that unspoken vow. Stay. Protect her. Keep her and her sons safe from harm. He had asked for sanctuary and been given it. Now he had to pay the price.

Rafe thought about that. It seemed ironic and proper that he now felt at a disadvantage. The ignominy of his position, a position due entirely to his own stupidity, bit deeply into him. He was caught in his own trap.

He vaguely recalled some ancient theory of sanctuary, whereby a man running from justice might run so adeptly that ultimately he entered into the place of refuge from which he could not be extracted.

Or was it that he did not want to be liberated?

The broad blade of the ax crashed down on an unoffending branch and buried itself in the wood. Rafe wrenched the handle free.

Struck again.

And again.

A peculiar certainty stole over him as he gripped the hickory handle, counterbalancing the quivering strength of the tree. As he worked Rafe absorbed the rhythm of the axe, his bonding with it the key to survival in this wilderness.

There was a bond, a link, between Charity Frey and himself as well, and such a connection could never be broken…

He heard a shout and twisted his head a fraction, but could see nothing amiss. Those pernicious children never gave up.

“A snake! Master Trehearne, a snake!”

Benjamin came tearing out of the barn just as Rafe swung the ax. It bit deep. He tried to wrench it free, but the handle came loose in his hand. Damnation! Now it would take him a quarter of an hour to repair the ax. It was all the fault of Charity Frey’s pesky sons.

Rafe’s head jerked up. “What proof can you give?”

“I tell you true!”

“How may I know that you tell the truth?” He did not even bother to sound contemptuous.

“You gotta believe me, sir. It’s gonna get Isaac!”

There was a peculiar, tense silence. Then, from the barn, came a high-pitched scream.

It was Isaac. The boy shrieked as if someone had stuck a knife into him.

Rafe knew the sound of terror when he heard it. His pulse leapt. Abruptly all his blood was alive, singing danger through his veins. He sprang forward.

Between the barn door and the first stall was a bundle of hay. In the hay a snake was coiled—light gray with brown diamonds along its thick, muscular back.

A rattler!

Rafe’s whole body tingled. His legs trembled, but not with fear. He flexed his thigh muscles and pushed off from the balls of his feet. The spring gave him the momentum he needed. His outstretched hands clawed, gripped onto one of the timber roof struts. He swung himself from beam to beam until he was directly above the petrified boy.

Dropping back to the ground, he grabbed Isaac by the shoulders, pivoted and thrust him to safety, looking all the while for something to kill the rattler with. He cursed himself for a fool for not believing the boys earlier.

“Don’t move!” he commanded. The order was an explosive inflection. Isaac opened his mouth, closed it. Rafe was already in motion.

Under the loft at the end of the barn was a pile of fence posts. Rafe grabbed one, took the scythe that hung from a hook on the wall and stole slowly toward the reptile near the barn door.

He was only a few steps from the snake when it raised its head, its sinuous body already in motion. A rattling sound was the only warning Rafe received before the serpent sprang forward, an elongated, blurred shape. With the scythe Rafe met it halfway, pinning its neck against the barn sill while he struck at its head with the post. A shiver raced up his arm and his fingers went momentarily numb.

He ignored the pain. Struck again. And again. The snake hissed like a boiling kettle as it tried to escape the killing blows.

There was a blurred sense of time shifting, of an element being acutely out of place. A ferocious howling filled Rafe’s ears until it became too painful to hear. Desperately he shouted to his men. There was a sense then of reality breaking up into tiny fragments, overlapping one upon the other until clarity was lost and only a dizzying impression was left, like shadows milling.

A swirl of movement from just behind him heralded another danger. He took a deep breath, straining for control, and swung to meet the new threat.

Poised in the doorway, Charity stifled a gasp. Heart pounding, she stood there, her lips blue white, every limb trembling. She put her hands over her heart as if the gesture could stop the painful pounding. She could feel the blood rushing in and out of her heart, the thump-thump of its beat.

Rafe’s hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Rivulets ran down his neck, over his bare chest. Raw emotion was clearly etched across his face.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice a feathery whisper.

“It could have bitten me, Mama,” Isaac said, then launched himself against her, wrapping both arms about her narrow waist, his bright head pressed hard against her breast. Her own arms enclosed him, holding him tight, as she had when he was an infant.

“Hush, child. You are safe now.” Her voice fractured and failed her.

The bondman flung the scythe from him, and the serpent slid to the floor, still quivering in death. There was a peculiar tautness in Rafe’s face.

He turned his hands over, staring at the backs—at the clenched fingers, the white knuckles, the white dressings, like bracelets at the wrist. He slammed his hands together.

Charity was panting, from the emotion running through her as much as from her breathless race from the top of the ridge. So many questions chased through her mind. She wished Rafe would look up at her. She knew that what she couldn’t say must be plain in her face.

But he did not.

“I am trained to kill and to stay alive.” He said the words slowly and softly. “Now there are times when instinct takes over—pure and lethal—because there is no time to think. Hesitate and you are dead.”

Rafe took a deep breath, let it go slowly. He paused and spread his hands, then continued in a stolid manner. “I am sorry if I upset you with my violence, ma’am, but I had an obligation to fulfil.”

Sudden intuition flooded her. He thought she was repelled because he had lost control of himself and she had witnessed his descent into mindless savagery and blood lust.

Instead, she had this almost overwhelming need to throw herself against his sweaty, blood-splattered body. Hug him to her as she did her son. It disturbed her how vulnerable she suddenly felt.

Charity closed her eyes, then opened them again. Her lips were dry, and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. She was silent a moment, and then blurted out, “I am obliged to you for your quick thinking, sir.”

“The snake was in the bin Isaac was emptying…”

Benjie lost his voice. His pale, little face, on which the freckles stood out like dark stains, looked stricken and wretched.

Charity put a trembling hand on his shoulder, drew him close, as she had Isaac. Her hair was in disarray, falling in thick locks about her pale face, but she ignored it. “Thank you for saving…”

The preoccupied expression left Rafe’s face. “You don’t have to trouble to say it again, ma’am. I always keep my promises. You may rest assured that you and your family are safe while I bide here.”

She wanted to say something else, but no words came to her. In spite of the relief of finding the boys unharmed, she was still disorientated. It had all happened so quickly. A menacing figure, a demon, had become rescuer and friend between one moment and the next. She needed time to catch up.

Even though it lay dead in front of her, the serpent still inspired fear in her. The glittering, sinuous body was both dangerous and beautiful. There was something strangely fascinating about the creature.

Never had Charity so surely and manifestly experienced God’s protecting hand. Perhaps the tempter, the devil himself, had assumed this serpent’s shape and sneaked into their barn with foul intent—only to be ousted by this good man who, to all outward appearances, seemed wicked.

Things were not always as they seemed.

At last she heard herself say, “Perhaps the child was saved because we gave shelter to a man in need of redemption.” The thought stayed with her long after they had left the place.

The sun had begun to make its descent, but still hung high in the clear sky, spilling its heat over the clearing, when Charity unpacked a jar of lemonade and some spiceand-ginger biscuits from her basket.

“It is time for some refreshment. You must be thirsty after such heavy labor. I have some fresh-made lemonade. Would you like that?” She was talking to fill in the gap, feeling as timid as a young maid.

Rafe had a short length of an oak log set up on a sawhorse of crossed stakes and was squaring it with the blade of his ax. The ax was so sharp that when he took the bit in his hands and pushed it against the wood, long, even shavings curled up as though he were using a drawknife.

He looked around at her, and his golden eyes seemed to take in at one glance everything about her, from her freshly ironed coif to the shoes on her feet.

“Lemonade?” The question was gentle, as if he understood what she really wanted to say.

Looking into his gleaming eyes was a task now, and after one glance, she wrenched her gaze away. She couldn’t meet those all-knowing eyes. She wasn’t ready. She’d never been ready for this…this invasion, this presence, this devil on the hunt for her inner self.

Only her body resisted her mind. Charity knew her figure hardly showed to advantage in the high-necked, longsleeved, drab gown, but the movement of her breathing made the fabric emphasize the shape of her full breasts. It was as if he had touched her there.

To make matters worse, her disturbed senses were responding, her breasts straining against their covering. She stole a glance to see if he’d noticed. He hadn’t. He’d resumed shaping the oak log.

“Do you want some?” she asked, nettled by his silence.

“Leave it. I’ll have some by and by.” He kept on thrusting the edge of his ax against the oak, producing the long, curling, pleasant-smelling shavings.

“If I do that, Betsy Ann is like to tip over the jug and spill it all,” Charity told him with considerable relish. “Raccoons are mischievous animals at the best of times, and we have pampered and spoiled Betsy Ann. Now the naughty creature thinks she can do what she likes. And not do what she doesn’t fancy,” she added tartly, thinking of how the pet raccoon had chewed through her tether this morning, brandished her striped tail in defiance and disappeared into the shrubbery.

Rafe straightened and eyed her coldly. Lines cut deeply into a face carved from chalk, the lips a chiseled slash. Just standing there, he gave the impression of controlled strength and energy. This was belied by his face, which was drawn and pale, the ragged scar adding a further dimension to the lines already etched into his features. He lifted his ax and tried the edge with his thumb.

“A ‘coon doesn’t like to be tied, any more than does a man.” He turned over the oak block and began squaring the other side.

Charity paled slightly at the implication inherent in the bondman’s words. She drew a breath, caught her lower lip in her teeth.

“I’m sorry.” She filled a horn beaker with the cool liquid. “I didn’t mean to remind you of your circumstances.”

For a long moment he looked at her, a searching scrutiny that was centered on her face and more especially her eyes. Charity refused to meet them, refused any hint of an answer to the question in them. She was still conscious of the ax in his left hand; it hung loosely, its blade resting on the tip of his boot.

Without a word, Rafe took the beaker in his right hand and swallowed the contents in one long gulp. The sleeves of his homespun shirt, rolled up to the elbow, revealed both the power of his forearms and the sensual shimmer of hair glistening with perspiration.

Charity took a deep breath. This man wasn’t going to harm her. She had to stop acting so anxious around him. She replaced the beaker in the basket. The silence grew unbearable and she had to speak. “You are bleeding again. Let me see.”

Rafe raised his dark eyebrows but held the palm of his right hand toward her, and Charity bit back the sudden wild longing to bend her head and press her lips into it.

“It’ll heal soon enough.” His voice rasped over her head.

She realized that her senses were full of the man. His bulk. His dark hair, carelessly tied back in a queue. His shirt with its damp masculine scent. His big, capable hand, resting on hers. The heat of the brief contact shot through her.

She lifted her right arm, and her fingers touched the contour of his scar, tracing it. She began hesitantly, searching for words to excuse her unusual behaviour. “It’s just that yesterday…”

“Ah, yesterday. I wondered when we would come to that!” He laid aside the ax.

Now that her uneasiness had dissipated, there was another kind of tension building. She couldn’t be near Rafe without feeling it. For some reason, this revelation gave her the courage to continue.

“Rafe…” It was the first time she had used his name, and she felt a shiver pass through him. His glance dropped to her mouth. She knew he was just as aware of her as she was of him. “It’s difficult for me to explain, but yesterday something happened that…”

The flawless blue sky suddenly tilted on its axis, twisting into a sea of green, as Charity was spun around like a top. Her upper arms felt as though they were in a vise. She winced as pain shot from her elbows to her shoulders.

“What are you saying, woman? What happened between us?” Rafe’s teeth almost snapped together as he spat out the words, his eyes narrowed to an amber gleam. Christ! He knew something had happened!